I find myself back at the first class international lunge at the LAX airport awaiting another flight to the Asia Pacific region. This time, I'm off to Sydney Australia. I'm headed for a week of planning and regional sales kick offs. It will be good and well worth the effort to get there and back. Speaking of effort to get there.... I guess that's where this story begins.
In reality, this trip so far has been easy by my travel standards. Granted, I'm only four hours in and on my first layover sitting in the first class lounge eating great food while awaiting my boarding on the new Airbus double decker mega plane. While I'm not in business class, I'm still in premium economy on the upper deck of the plane so I can't complain (much).
Getting to LAX for the connection was easy. Getting through security, however seemed to be my first hurdle. The line was worse than anything I've seen at Disneyland
If you look to the upper left corner of the picture you'll see that the lines take a left and then continue to snake. What was worse, is that the longer you stood in line and thus the further you snaked your way through, the temperature seemed to increase. My thoughts reflected on Dante's 'Inferno' and the nine levels of hell you had to pass through to get to paradise.
While deep in my thoughts wondering which level of hell I was in with each turn of the line, something wonderful happened. It turned out that the crowd was so large that the security team was ushering families out of the main line and into a special short line. There was a large family in front of me that was selected to join the 'happy line'. The guard opened the ribbon liner dividing the lines and ushered them into the short line. Here's where the magic happened. I was wearing my headphones looking like there wasn't a thought in the world going through my head when the guard gave me this look like, "Dude, keep up with your family or you're going to get left behind."
Ok, it's time to make a choice.
Option A: Explain that I'm not with them and continue snaking through hell
Option B: Give a smile and a nod and embrace my new family
Anyone who has read of my earlier travels already knows the answer. I now have a wonderful new family with whom I bonded during our very short stay in the security line. After all, travel is all about the law of averages so if you want to end up in an average or even good place you have to take advantage of the openings as they come.
The flight itself was terrific. Qantas puts on a good flight with great service, food and entertainment. We boarded the plane just before midnight and took flight soon thereafter. I managed to get an exit row so I had infinite leg room. I selected my first movie, put on my headphones and waited for dinner to be served.
For anyone who hasn't traveled to Australia or Asia, here is the secret to happy travel. Pick the midnight flight and stay awake 3-4 hours after take off. It's kind of hard if you're like me and on a normal night you're passed out cold by 10:30 but it's well worth it. You're so tired by that point that it's easier to sleep and when you wake up, you're just 2-3 hours from landing so they serve you breakfast and then you land. When you get off the plan, it's first thing in the morning local time, you've just woken up and had breakfast and you feel like you're on schedule. It's MUCH easier to adjust compared with going to Europe.
Yes, I know you have the choice put before you SO often on whether you're going to travel to Europe or Asia so I know that was all helpful advice.
Anywho, on to Sydney.
I had to arrive on a Sunday since my meetings for the week started first thing on Monday. While I really hate having to travel over the weekend and leave my family I thought that I'd at least make the most of it since I was going to summertime in Sydney. I had a full day of laying on the beach planned as a decompression day. Well, you guessed it, on that day alone, the summer was put on hold in favor of a cloudy, rainy day with a high of 75. Are you kidding me?!? I went to the beach anyway to see it. I can't be this close to an ocean or nice beach without touching the sand. I'm OCD that way.
Looking at the map, it looked like I could take the train to a point close enough to walk.
What I didn't realize, is that from that red dot on the right (Bondi Junction) to the beach on the far right is a few miles. Ugh! What a hike! But at least it was a good chance to see some of the side streets and shops.
I finally made it and it was beautiful. It was later in the day but so the crowd was thinning but the sun had finally broken through and the surfers were coming out again. It was at this point that I began to learn that there are different areas of the beach. There was a family area, a middle area and then a more adult area. What I call the adult area didn't mean that kids weren't allowed. It just means that tops seems to be optional for women. While this concept might appeal to younger guys, let me explain one of the simple truths of life. 99.999999% of the world's population should never be seen naked. This principle was holding true for me this day. Since it was later in the day and cooler there were just a couple of ladies bearing all. I would have paid them to put clothes on but since those conversations wouldn't have gone well, I chose instead to look across the breaking waves as I passed their portion of the beach.
After a few minutes of meditating while watching the incredible surf, I decided to head back as the walk was far more than I had anticipated. On the way back to the train I passed 'Healthy Burger' which peaked my interest. A healthy hamburger? Is that possible? I had to find out. As it turned out, it was just a catchy name as there was NO way that the burger I ate was healthy. It was, however, heaven! It's hard to describe but it was juicy and covered in topping not found on traditional US burgers. I loved every bite.
I finally arrived at my hotel around 8:00 pm and my head was spinning. Jet lag was taking its toll and it was time for bed. I tried to watch some TV but found it hard to concentrate so I turned out the lights at 8:45. Sleep found me quickly and I was in a deep, dark place mentally when the sounds of cannon fire rang heavy in the air. Startled awake, it took me a minute to figure out that source of the sounds which were the cause of the adrenaline now flowing freely through my body was the Australia Day fireworks going off one block from my hotel. Ah, bless the Aussies. They don't do small events. The fireworks went off and on for over 30 minutes. And in addition to that, the conclusion of the fireworks seem to signal to the rooms around me that it was time to party. Yea Australian party culture. (that was sarcasm)
The next few days were a blur of all day meetings and all night dinners. The first night's dinner (Monday night) was a great Greek dinner. I was openly mocked by one of the sales leaders as I tried to duck out at 9:00 pm. I was told that I had 'weak sauce' because I was leaving so early. Here's the thing about sales dinners. They start after a trip to the bar, last far too long, and end with a trip to the bar. I'm not into drinking (I don't drink) and I don't like to stay out late so sales dinners and I are like oil and water to begin with. Then you throw in four nights of them in a row and I get grumpy.
Day two was actually pretty cool. After the normal morning of meetings we were off to Sydney harbor for an afternoon of sailing. When I first heard this, I assumed a barge of some sort with lots of food and drinks and sitting around whilst we moved very slowly around the harbor. Wrong!
We were on an America's Cup-class racing boat which required us to man the wenches to trim the sails as we did timed runs around the harbor. While we didn't go THAT fast, we were going at 13.5 knots which seemed pretty good to me.
That night there was the standard, bar, dinner, bar routine which I simply didn't show up for. Instead, I had a relaxing night of take out sushi and book reading (yeah, more weak sauce).
Minus the sailing, this was the pattern for the week. Meetings all day followed by bar, dinner, bar. Wednesday night I felt obliged to attend since it involved another boat. This time, the boat was a water taxi which took us far across the harbor to a nice beach-side venue where we (you guessed it) did the standard bar-dinner combo. The boat got us back to the city around 11:00 where some people were looking for another bar but I ducked into a taxi to head to bed.
Thursday night was the final night so again, I felt obliged to attend. This time, I skipped the bar and just went to dinner. The food and company were wonderful but I ducked out at 9:00 and went to walk the town a bit. Being the last night I wanted to see something of the city since our days and nights had been pretty much over programmed.
I was able to find an open-air mall where there were a variety of artists on display. This one was my favorite:
There were also some amazing guitarists playing at different spots and I'm kicking myself for not recording some of their playing or buying a cd. Seeing and hearing these artists were one of the highlights of my trip.
Friday finally came around. It turns out that 1/2 of the group from dinner stayed out till 4:00 am so our meetings ended up starting 90 mins late. Whatever. Normally I'd be pretty angry but at this point in the week I was done with meetings so I didn't care. Our final meeting was a meeting to give feedback on the other meetings. Can you guess what mine was? If you answered, "We had too many meetings this week!" then you are correct! The team kind of looked shocked at me for saying that but I saw some heads bobbing as I said it. Truth bombs, sometimes you have to drop them. (put that on a t-shirt)
I headed to the airport and almost cried when I saw this:
This little baby was my ride home. It's one of those new fancy double decker ultra liners. I was in premium econ (once again on the poor side of the screen of separation but at least not in the bargain basement in coach). The seat next to me was empty which was good because I had my friend Ambien traveling with me and he needs a seat to himself (A.K.A. who knows what weird and wonderful positions I get into when sleeping under the influence of Ambien - I think I end of sleeping sideways which doesn't quite workout well if there's someone in the seat next to you). I think I've taken enough Ambien on airplanes to write the side effects portion of the commercial. You know, the one where the announcer speaks really, really quickly in the hopes that you won't be able to understand what he's saying. Some of the side effects of Ambien on an airplane include, but are not limited to:
In reality, this trip so far has been easy by my travel standards. Granted, I'm only four hours in and on my first layover sitting in the first class lounge eating great food while awaiting my boarding on the new Airbus double decker mega plane. While I'm not in business class, I'm still in premium economy on the upper deck of the plane so I can't complain (much).
Getting to LAX for the connection was easy. Getting through security, however seemed to be my first hurdle. The line was worse than anything I've seen at Disneyland
If you look to the upper left corner of the picture you'll see that the lines take a left and then continue to snake. What was worse, is that the longer you stood in line and thus the further you snaked your way through, the temperature seemed to increase. My thoughts reflected on Dante's 'Inferno' and the nine levels of hell you had to pass through to get to paradise.
While deep in my thoughts wondering which level of hell I was in with each turn of the line, something wonderful happened. It turned out that the crowd was so large that the security team was ushering families out of the main line and into a special short line. There was a large family in front of me that was selected to join the 'happy line'. The guard opened the ribbon liner dividing the lines and ushered them into the short line. Here's where the magic happened. I was wearing my headphones looking like there wasn't a thought in the world going through my head when the guard gave me this look like, "Dude, keep up with your family or you're going to get left behind."
Ok, it's time to make a choice.
Option A: Explain that I'm not with them and continue snaking through hell
Option B: Give a smile and a nod and embrace my new family
Anyone who has read of my earlier travels already knows the answer. I now have a wonderful new family with whom I bonded during our very short stay in the security line. After all, travel is all about the law of averages so if you want to end up in an average or even good place you have to take advantage of the openings as they come.
The flight itself was terrific. Qantas puts on a good flight with great service, food and entertainment. We boarded the plane just before midnight and took flight soon thereafter. I managed to get an exit row so I had infinite leg room. I selected my first movie, put on my headphones and waited for dinner to be served.
For anyone who hasn't traveled to Australia or Asia, here is the secret to happy travel. Pick the midnight flight and stay awake 3-4 hours after take off. It's kind of hard if you're like me and on a normal night you're passed out cold by 10:30 but it's well worth it. You're so tired by that point that it's easier to sleep and when you wake up, you're just 2-3 hours from landing so they serve you breakfast and then you land. When you get off the plan, it's first thing in the morning local time, you've just woken up and had breakfast and you feel like you're on schedule. It's MUCH easier to adjust compared with going to Europe.
Yes, I know you have the choice put before you SO often on whether you're going to travel to Europe or Asia so I know that was all helpful advice.
Anywho, on to Sydney.
I had to arrive on a Sunday since my meetings for the week started first thing on Monday. While I really hate having to travel over the weekend and leave my family I thought that I'd at least make the most of it since I was going to summertime in Sydney. I had a full day of laying on the beach planned as a decompression day. Well, you guessed it, on that day alone, the summer was put on hold in favor of a cloudy, rainy day with a high of 75. Are you kidding me?!? I went to the beach anyway to see it. I can't be this close to an ocean or nice beach without touching the sand. I'm OCD that way.
Looking at the map, it looked like I could take the train to a point close enough to walk.
What I didn't realize, is that from that red dot on the right (Bondi Junction) to the beach on the far right is a few miles. Ugh! What a hike! But at least it was a good chance to see some of the side streets and shops.
I finally made it and it was beautiful. It was later in the day but so the crowd was thinning but the sun had finally broken through and the surfers were coming out again. It was at this point that I began to learn that there are different areas of the beach. There was a family area, a middle area and then a more adult area. What I call the adult area didn't mean that kids weren't allowed. It just means that tops seems to be optional for women. While this concept might appeal to younger guys, let me explain one of the simple truths of life. 99.999999% of the world's population should never be seen naked. This principle was holding true for me this day. Since it was later in the day and cooler there were just a couple of ladies bearing all. I would have paid them to put clothes on but since those conversations wouldn't have gone well, I chose instead to look across the breaking waves as I passed their portion of the beach.
After a few minutes of meditating while watching the incredible surf, I decided to head back as the walk was far more than I had anticipated. On the way back to the train I passed 'Healthy Burger' which peaked my interest. A healthy hamburger? Is that possible? I had to find out. As it turned out, it was just a catchy name as there was NO way that the burger I ate was healthy. It was, however, heaven! It's hard to describe but it was juicy and covered in topping not found on traditional US burgers. I loved every bite.
I finally arrived at my hotel around 8:00 pm and my head was spinning. Jet lag was taking its toll and it was time for bed. I tried to watch some TV but found it hard to concentrate so I turned out the lights at 8:45. Sleep found me quickly and I was in a deep, dark place mentally when the sounds of cannon fire rang heavy in the air. Startled awake, it took me a minute to figure out that source of the sounds which were the cause of the adrenaline now flowing freely through my body was the Australia Day fireworks going off one block from my hotel. Ah, bless the Aussies. They don't do small events. The fireworks went off and on for over 30 minutes. And in addition to that, the conclusion of the fireworks seem to signal to the rooms around me that it was time to party. Yea Australian party culture. (that was sarcasm)
The next few days were a blur of all day meetings and all night dinners. The first night's dinner (Monday night) was a great Greek dinner. I was openly mocked by one of the sales leaders as I tried to duck out at 9:00 pm. I was told that I had 'weak sauce' because I was leaving so early. Here's the thing about sales dinners. They start after a trip to the bar, last far too long, and end with a trip to the bar. I'm not into drinking (I don't drink) and I don't like to stay out late so sales dinners and I are like oil and water to begin with. Then you throw in four nights of them in a row and I get grumpy.
Day two was actually pretty cool. After the normal morning of meetings we were off to Sydney harbor for an afternoon of sailing. When I first heard this, I assumed a barge of some sort with lots of food and drinks and sitting around whilst we moved very slowly around the harbor. Wrong!
That night there was the standard, bar, dinner, bar routine which I simply didn't show up for. Instead, I had a relaxing night of take out sushi and book reading (yeah, more weak sauce).
Minus the sailing, this was the pattern for the week. Meetings all day followed by bar, dinner, bar. Wednesday night I felt obliged to attend since it involved another boat. This time, the boat was a water taxi which took us far across the harbor to a nice beach-side venue where we (you guessed it) did the standard bar-dinner combo. The boat got us back to the city around 11:00 where some people were looking for another bar but I ducked into a taxi to head to bed.
Thursday night was the final night so again, I felt obliged to attend. This time, I skipped the bar and just went to dinner. The food and company were wonderful but I ducked out at 9:00 and went to walk the town a bit. Being the last night I wanted to see something of the city since our days and nights had been pretty much over programmed.
I was able to find an open-air mall where there were a variety of artists on display. This one was my favorite:
There were also some amazing guitarists playing at different spots and I'm kicking myself for not recording some of their playing or buying a cd. Seeing and hearing these artists were one of the highlights of my trip.
Friday finally came around. It turns out that 1/2 of the group from dinner stayed out till 4:00 am so our meetings ended up starting 90 mins late. Whatever. Normally I'd be pretty angry but at this point in the week I was done with meetings so I didn't care. Our final meeting was a meeting to give feedback on the other meetings. Can you guess what mine was? If you answered, "We had too many meetings this week!" then you are correct! The team kind of looked shocked at me for saying that but I saw some heads bobbing as I said it. Truth bombs, sometimes you have to drop them. (put that on a t-shirt)
I headed to the airport and almost cried when I saw this:
This little baby was my ride home. It's one of those new fancy double decker ultra liners. I was in premium econ (once again on the poor side of the screen of separation but at least not in the bargain basement in coach). The seat next to me was empty which was good because I had my friend Ambien traveling with me and he needs a seat to himself (A.K.A. who knows what weird and wonderful positions I get into when sleeping under the influence of Ambien - I think I end of sleeping sideways which doesn't quite workout well if there's someone in the seat next to you). I think I've taken enough Ambien on airplanes to write the side effects portion of the commercial. You know, the one where the announcer speaks really, really quickly in the hopes that you won't be able to understand what he's saying. Some of the side effects of Ambien on an airplane include, but are not limited to:
- Calling out, "Arlene, watch out!" in your sleep (unless you actually know an Arelene. In that case you shout out, 'Pedro, the child is yours!'"
- Wrapping blankets around your head like a turban
- Getting naked
- Invited others to get naked
- staring at the people next to you without blinking until they move seats
- Asking the guy next to you if he's an Air Marshall. Followed by the statement, "Real cops work on the ground."
- Watching any movie with Owen Wilson in it and liking it
Some of those have actually happened to me. I won't tell you which ones.
When I arrived home it was the best thing ever. While I hate being away for such a long period of time, I have to say that I love the reunion with my family. Life is about contrasts. You can't experience the pleasure without the pain, the joy without the sorrow. The greater the paid or sorrow the greater the joy and pleasure.
I'll never tire of each of my kids genuinely getting excited to see me and hugging me like they mean it. Little girls who hug my neck and kiss my check until I have to pull them off of me. Seeing an actual sincere smile from my teenagers who often go days without talking to me. Then there's seeing Stephanie for the first time in a week. It's always like seeing her for the first time. My heart skips a beat and I lose my breath and all I want to do is hold her and hug her. It's like getting a limb back that was severed.
There are a couple of trips that I was asked to take over the next couple of weeks but I've turned them down. I just can't leave again so quickly. But never fear, in my life the next trip is always just around the next corner.
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